


Constellations On Your Skin

by QueenoftheHobbits



Series: Soft Thighs Series [20]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, nothing especially sexual, overweight reader, plus size reader, some tender love and care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-19 15:37:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7367488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenoftheHobbits/pseuds/QueenoftheHobbits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky finds painting therapeutic, you don’t mind being his canvas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Constellations On Your Skin

It started with Bucky painting and drawing on pieces of paper around the tower, apparently the therapist that Tony was paying for him to see (much to Tony’s chagrin and his many comments about it, and the underlying bitterness, but he’d been trying to understand and trying to work past everything with Bucky) had suggested art as a form of therapy and it actually seemed to do some good. Sometimes you’d wake up in the middle of the night to find him huddled in the kitchen over a piece of paper drawing out how he felt or the things he saw down onto a page, harsh lines, soft lines, charcoal, and pencil. He wasn’t the best at art, but that wasn’t the point of it, it wasn’t about how it looked, it was about how it felt...and you were relieved to see someone you cared about a great deal finding a way to cope. Finding a harmless, safe, good way to cope.

As the nature of your relationship with Bucky developed from friends to lovers, where in Bucky was all all hard edges and you were all soft corners, so did the nature of Bucky’s therapy. You weren’t entirely sure who suggested it first or how it first started happening, but soon paper stopped being his canvas and instead your skin did. Maybe it started with letting him draw on your arm when there was no paper around, or doodling on your face while you were sleeping, and then quickly escalated to you lying down on your stomach, bare back exposed, letting him paint across your skin.

You enjoyed it as much as he did although less in the way of calming demons, but rather from the knowledge that you helped him, and the knowledge that he enjoyed painting across the rolls of your back, and the width of your hips, and the softness of your body. It made you feel increasingly confident in your weight and in how your body looked...and you got to help your boyfriend with his own demons as well...and in a calmer manner than usual...in a way you both enjoyed rather than something that scared you both in the middle of the night.

Currently you were resting stomach down on your bed, your head resting on your arms which were folded underneath your neck, and bare from the hips up. A towel was resting underneath you to cover the bed spread, and pots of paint were arranged across your covers, (you had a deal that Bucky would pay for replacing things if he ruined them with paint.). You relaxed under the feeling of Bucky straddling your hips, thick thighs pressed against your wide hips, careful not to put his whole weight on you. Bucky was a lot of muscle and while you loved him, numb legs weren’t your favourite thing in the world...and in this position there’d be no doubt you’d get numb legs. 

Bucky didn’t like silence in these moments, you weren’t sure why, but he liked to have some form of noise...originally it had been the TV playing in the background and then it had been music. All sorts of music, music he remembered like Harry James, and music that was newer that you enjoyed growing up and as an adult...and it was always there in the background. 

You almost always mouthed the words or hummed along with the song, as cold paint dripped over back, the ticklish sensation of a paint brush drawing patterns and constellations of colour across the rolls and dips and curves of your back and neck. Today was no different, you closed your eyes and relaxed to the crooning of Vera Lynn and the sensation of Bucky’s hands skimming over your skin. 

He always seemed to map your back first, kisses to the back of your neck and shoulders, hands, one cold and one warm, trailing carefully over the dip of your waist, and curve of your hips, and back over the expanse of your back. Whether it was for his own personal enjoyment, or a silent way of saying thank you, you weren’t sure, but you could never complain about the careful touches that made you want to fall asleep and dream.

For Bucky it was actually almost a way of figuring out what and how he was going to paint on you, would it be mindless patterns, or a particular scene? Would it be the night sky or a field he remembered from some distant memory? For Bucky painting on you was not only a way to release emotions, but it wasn’t permanent, he could watch you wash those painful emotions away after every session...as well as enjoying the view and being reminded that you were there for him. That he had this beautiful, kind girlfriend, with soft curves, stretch marks and little moles on your back...he had someone to care about other than Steve and someone who cared about and trusted him enough to always place themselves in vulnerable positions around him.

You felt the way a brush and cold paint hit your back, the delicate trailing of paint over your back was an almost ticklish sensation, but not quite. The feeling travelled from your back to the top of your neck and across your shoulders, and other than the occasional shiver caused by the sensation you did nothing, you just let Bucky do what he needed to do and relaxed into him and whatever he wanted to paint on you today. You could hear him humming to himself over the music, not along with it, but rather thoughtful hums that expressed how he was thinking. For him while it wasn’t about how well he painted, he wanted to paint his best...especially when he was painting on you, he did his best to be careful as he applied layer upon layer of paint, sometimes with brushes that tickled and sometimes with his fingers which burned in a familiar way. 

And then he was done, helping you stand and brushing your hair over your shoulder and out of the way, stepping back like any painter looking at his work...and turning your back to a mirror to help you see...and painted across your back were the stars, dark blues, and purples, and violets, splattering of white, and grey. While it certainly wasn’t a master piece it was breath taking in a way. 

“It reminds me of you...” The murmur was so quiet you thought you might have misheard at first, a quiet mumbling near your ear, as familiar hands traced along the tops of your shoulders, and down the expanse of your large arms. 

“How?” Your voice was just as quiet, as you watched him in the mirror, your back to his chest now. You didn’t want to break the calmness of the room, to stop him from speaking what was on his mind.

“...you’re...endless...and beautiful...and you make feel calm...like evenings in Brooklyn...” It wasn’t the most poetic piece in the world, but then Bucky wasn’t poetic, he was simple home truths, and laconic but meaningful sentences. 

“You’re beautiful too, you know?” You watched his lip quirk in the mirror, a small huff of a laugh leaving him, before his hands came to rest on your shoulders, a kiss coming down to press against your right shoulder before Bucky began pushing you towards a bathroom. 

You were patient and quiet as he washed the paint from your skin, this was as much therapy for him as the actual painting, he’d take a hot washcloth and glide it across your skin, careful to strip the paint from you and watch the colours swirl down the drain. You figured it was his way of letting things go, there was no permanence in painting on your body and maybe that translated to how he wanted to feel about the bad emotions and memories, that they would go. That they wouldn’t always be there to haunt him.

“Thank you...for doing this, doll...” A dry towel was rubbed gently over your back before being draped around your shoulders.

“I enjoy it, I like being able to do something for you...something simple.” There was always the helping him from nightmares, and calming him down from panic attacks and episodes...but it wasn’t the same. You didn’t enjoy watching him in pain and having to help with that, you hated seeing him like that. But this? This was good for you both and it stopped him hurting and it made you relax...it was good for you both. 

You would forever be willing to let Bucky paint constellations of his pain across your skin and wash it all away in the end. 


End file.
